Year 1 Blog

Welcome to the blog for our Year 1 classes. The year group blogs are a great communication tool. Teachers will be posting news, photographs, details of homework, examples of work, and anything they wish to share with their pupils and parents. Please speak to your class teacher if you have any question, feedback or concerns.

Mrs Foulds

Green Class Teacher

Mrs De Vynck

Purple Class Teacher

We have two year 1 classes. Children in these classes are developing their skills and building on the learning from Foundation Stage. When the children are ready, usually by October half term, the learning becomes based on the Key Stage One National Curriculum Programmes of Study. We still believe that children learn best when the ‘subjects’ are linked in a meaningful way and then basic skills are taught for a real purpose. We encourage the children to take ownership of their learning, ask questions and have a say in the planning process. We hope to motivate all children by taking account of their needs, strengths and interests and provide rich experiences and learning opportunities which will continue to excite them.

Thank you for the matchboxes and sponsorship money received so far. Some of you have managed to squeeze a lot of items into a tiny space! We’re not quite sure what will come jumping out at us when the boxes are opened!

If you have not quite finished getting your matchbox full, then you have a few more days this weekend to do so. So please bring any last few matchboxes in on Monday.

We will announce one winner from each year group at the Easter concert on the last Wednesday of term (the 29th).

While the children were happily watching their films this afternoon, I counted up all the vouchers we have so far. We just are over one-quarter of the way to reaching our target of 12,210, as we have 3088 so far!

Well done everyone so far – special mention should be made of Evie in green class who comes into class clutching a handful at least twice a week. Thank you for your support so far. Please keep it up – we have till the end of June to reach our target. Buying all the Easter eggs from Sainsbury’s could bring in a fair few more vouchers to help us on our way.

The week started very differently from the way it ended! Because it was so gloriously sunny on Monday, green class planted some bulbs and seeds outside. They are all now in green class, where the children will observe what happens to them, over time.

This week the children have been learning about doubles and halves. They used Cuisinaire to explore the relationship between them. They had to find two equal-sized rods which, together, were the same as one other rod of a different colour.

Today Mrs Yerbury came in and made an Easter garden with some of the children. Afterwards, they explained to the class the significance of the items in there, the flowers representing new life and the pot representing the cave where Christians believe Jesus’ body was laid. This will help embed the children’s understanding of the meaning of Easter for Christians, which Mrs Lyal is teaching them about on Thursdays.

This week Year 1 did the best form of Science – hands-on. The children explored their five senses through feeling, tasting, smelling, hearing and looking at a great variety of objects. They then thought of really good adjectives to describe what they’d just sensed in preparation for a poem about the senses, which they wrote today.

Purple Class has learnt about the four countries which make up the UK. They made some fantastic suggestions as to what the word “kingdom” could mean, such as the dome belonging to the king. You could talk to your child about which countries in the UK your family members come from or live in and practise saying the 4 countries which comprise the UK. We also talked a bit about the Union Jack flag, capital cities and the patron saints of each country. One of the home learning activities is to label each country in the UK correctly. Green Class will do this learning next week.

There are signs of new life in the plants at school, which is very exciting – and welcome! – and forms part of the new RE topic of “Easter” which is taught by Mrs Lyal in both classes. Talking about the plants you can see growing now would be excellent home learning One of the year 1 one objectives for Science is to know the names of common plants. Children can think that all flowers are daisies or sunflowers unless other flowers are pointed out and explained.

In Maths, the children continued to learn about adding and subtracting from 2-digit numbers by regrouping one lot of ten into ten ones and then subtracting the single-digit number. They can use Dienes proficiently to show their understanding. Next week we will move onto fractions of shapes and quantities.

The children are enjoying the sessions on the apparatus very much and they are focusing on balancing just now – balancing on small parts of the body, and becoming more adventurous. Green Class got braver and braver and did some excellent balances, such as balancing only on 2 hands either off an “A-frame”, or on one of the platforms.

The new school councillors were elected today. Well done to the children who were elected and also well done to everyone who stood. The children formulated their own ideas very well and explained them clearly to the classes.

So much happened this week it is hard to compile into one single post so I’ll let some pictures speak for us.

On Monday, Mrs Munsey started a Science investigation with the children to measure rainfall and discuss about what time of the year usually sees more rain. They looked at weather forecasts and compared to our own weather chart. They have measured the rainfall a couple of times and some were surprised that despite the heavy rain the previous night not much water had been collected in the bottles outside. How could you explain that? Is there any other way we could try to be more accurate? Discuss this questions with your child. Let their inquisitive minds come up with their answers from their own observations.

Rainfall Science Investigation

During World Book Day (2nd March), it was amazing to see all children dressed up as their favourite book characters. They were really excited to see all their friends in their costumes. We had a special meeting so they could see each other’s special outfits. It was also lovely to see all the adults who came to read with the children in the afternoon. What a special time they all had! Thank you to all mums, dads, grandparents and carers who made this day even more memorable.

World Book Day

World Book Day

Today we received John O’Leary, a book illustrator, who delivered a talk to the whole school and workshops to each class. In Year 1 the children have been creating their own version of Fortunately Unfortunately by Michael Foreman and oday they created their own pop-up books. They made different designs in Green and Purple Class and we look forward to see their finished books. Here they are in action:

In Maths we have been learning to add 3 single digit numbers by finding 10 first and I was impressed how most children could spot the numbers which make 10 very quickly. Please keep practicing the number bonds we have sent home with their home learning. It has been showing fantastic results, thank you!

The children have started to use the Paint software in Computing to draw the illustrations they are creating for Little Red Riding Hood. If you don’t have this program installed in your home computers/laptops, they can practice their drawing skills using Purple Mash.

Well, I think the children (and adults alike) need a little rest after such a busy week and we will welcome you on Monday for more fantastic learning.

It was another exciting week in Year 1. The children talked a lot about the weather, especially by observing the effects of storm Doris on our school life. They could verify the force of the wind when one afternoon we saw the waste bin moving around in the playground and we even noticed one turned bench in the quiet area. No learning opportunity can be missed!

In Geography, the children are starting to identify and name the seven continents. They have been practising a little song: “Tell me the continents, tell me continents, tell me if you can. North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Don’t forget Australia, don’t forget Antartica. Tell me the continents, tell me the continents, tell me if you can!” They will know the tunes, if you help with the words.

This half-term we are incorporating traditional tales to our dance unit. The children have already enjoyed telling the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears using movement to the beat of different musical instruments. During the gym/apparatus sessions we are improving our balancing skills.

“We are painters” is the title of our Computing unit for Spring 2 and we have started our project to illustrate an eBook. The children will learn to use Paint to create and change images on the computer and to insert this picture on a Word document. In groups they will illustrate the story of Little Red Riding Hood, each child in the group creating the illustration and text to one part of the story. During this unit we also look at pictures on the web, discussing the importance of using the internet safely and appropriately.

As mentioned in a previous post, we are creating our own versions of the book Fortunately, Unfortunately by Michael Foreman and in Purple Class Milo ended up on top of a coconut tree from where he was, unfortunately, pushed by a monkey but, fortunately, ended up landing… Well, let’s not spoil the surprising end. We will continue to work on our stories and will have a workshop on Friday, with a very special teaching guest, when the children will be producing pop-up books. Watch out this space.

As you will have noticed, we have returned the home learning books with a new activity grid for this half-term. Feel free to ask for the extra sheets for some of the activities as specified on the grid.

Kind request: Could you please make sure your child has a complete PE kit at school. Also, could the children also keep their reading diaries, reading books, library books and home learning books in their book bags once they have used them to be available at school every day.

We hope you are enjoying the weekend and see you all next week for more learning.

Yesterday we had a visit from our Sustainable School Partner for Eco Awareness – Samuel Ryder, they work with us to share their knowledge.

The two 6th Form Students took whole school meeting and led a quiz about how to care for our planet. Our children were incredibly well behaved and made us all very proud. They had lots of prior knowledge about recycling and how we are affecting our planet.

We then showed Samuel Ryder our next Eco project “Upcycling” which you will hear more about very soon.

The children are writing new scenarios for our focus book this half-term, which is a very entertaining book called “Fortunately, Unfortunately” by Michael Foreman. Milo the monkey tries to return his Grandma’s umbrella and encounters all sorts of ordeals on the way, volcano, pirates and aliens amongst them. On Wednesday, Green Class thought up incidents which could happen subsequently and came up with some fantastic ideas – carried away by a bird, landed on the moon, rescued by aliens who are now on the moon, meeting Tim Peake. They have drawn some pictures to show their ideas and tomorrow they will think of some good words to describe them.

In Music, the children are learning a song about Noah’s Ark. They choose instruments to accompany the action, selecting the instrument which makes the right sort of sound – in terms of dynamics, note length, timbre – and then played them in the way which best portrays the action.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mrs Reed and Miss Brookfield introduced the children to Kandinsky and his abstract form of Art. The children created some careful, beautiful multi-coloured circles and were completely engrossed in the activity. These, and other work from this half-term, will be available for you to see on the “open afternoon” which will be the last Thursday of this half-term. If you would like to pop in and see the children’s work before this, after school one day, you are very welcome to do so.

On Monday the children were learning to investigate an area of Science – whether something will float or sink. As a class, they made their predictions as to whether they thought each object would sink of float. They then had a set of objects to test, using a box of water. Some results were not a surprise to some children, but others were. We talked about what may be a reason for some things floating and others not. Maybe your son or daughter could tell you what s/he found out about which objects float and which don’t; and why this might be the case.

We are also starting to see some changes in our class garden. We discussed what we saw there and used words like stem, stalk shoot, flower. Can your child remember the names of the first signs of life in our garden?